How to Turn Your Blog into a Lead Generator?

Blogs first became popular in the 1990s. Now everyone from amateur hobbyists to local shops and multinational brands has one. That's hardly surprising. Authorities like HubSpot tell us that content marketers who focus on blogs are up to 13 times more likely to increase their ROI.

What is Lead?

A lead is a person who shows interest in a company's product or service. The customer turns into the lead when taking actions like Subscribe, download, take trial, or in any way submit personal information.

What is Lead Generation?

Generating leads is the first step in the sales process. Lead generation involves attracting prospects to your business to share their contact information. This way you, nurture and convince them until they become customers.

How Does Blogging Generate Leads?

The short answer is with content.
Blogging is a popular and cost-effective method that will help you to pull the traffic to your page. Traffic generation lays the foundation for lead generation. Still, engaging and value-rich content won't convert readers to leads themselves.
Instead, writers should push readers further into the customer journey. We will cover several methods to help you to achieve that goal later. As of now, it is crucial to visualize the customer's journey, the lead generation funnel.

Lead Generation Funnel

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

Here, everything is about building brand awareness. It is your first interaction with a potential customer, so you should try to establish trust.
At this stage, the customer has a problem and is looking for information. Probably, users never explored neither your business nor industry. They do not think about completing sales, but their time will come.
Imagine you are just walking on the streets and partially glancing at the counters of shops. If you want to catch these customers, you need to provide content around the awareness stage. So, you should search for queries for the initial stage and provide helpful erudition.

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

A potential customer has realized the need to fix a problem and is exploring the options. But the tricky point is that they are not sure what and where to buy. From here, you should start appearing under the nose of readers. They are valuable to you. Try your best not to let them go.

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

People have become acquainted with your business, read the articles, and take the initiative. They are seriously considering using your product or services. Now, your focus should be on selling. Send them case studies, demos, free trial offers, etc.

Take Initial Steps

Know Your Goals

Blogs are less formal than landing pages or product descriptions so, you stick to a more relaxed tone. Writing chatty pieces can be fun but, you should not lose sight of your objectives.
Generally, blogs aim to attract potential customers and make them want to learn more. Think about who you want to reach and what they want to see to achieve your site traffic/conversion goals. Adopt a tone that suits the subject and stay focused on your aims.

Understand Your Audience

It enables you to adopt a suitable style or tone of voice to help your readers connect. It is more likely that you'll come up with topics that interest them.
Decide who it is for and how to attract the demographic's attention. Be age-specific where necessary. Some products might target women in their teens and 20s, while others appeal to men over 40.

Align with Internal Departments

When you are producing content internally, the whole organization is involved in the process.
For example, content managers coordinate with the sales team to get questions clients frequently ask. This data will help them to walk into customers' shoes and create relevant content around it.

Model Lead Generation Process

The first tip to learn is the importance of modeling the lead generation process. The idea is to understand how customer groups follow the pathway to the final stages.

• A visitor finds your blog from your channels: social media, website, or from search engines.
• A visitor reads your blog and receives valuable information. Then click on your CTA or subscription offer, encouraging them to take action. (Fill in survey, download whitepaper, register on free trial).
• They give away their personal information in exchange for the newsletter, whitepaper, or completing a survey.

Conduct Topic Research

Think about your prospects and what they need. Research the topics that are closely related to their interest and include valuable tips that will fix their pain points. No matter how qualified you think you are, do the research. It will help you to see the global picture and organize your copy.

• What do I know about the topic?
• What's missing?
• Research General Information
• Analyze Competitors
• Check F.A.Q
• Look for Data
• Evaluate Sources

Create an Outline

Don't underestimate the power of the blog within the SEO industry. A well-structured piece filled with valuable content will engage the audience.

• First, a strong introduction is essential
• Decide how many points you want to make and devote a section to each
• Use headings and subheadings to aim for short paragraphs
• Check spelling and grammar

Keep it interesting

Readers landed on your blog while looking for a specific item or service. So it would help if you assumed they know a little about it but would like to learn more. Blog content should make readers feel they have gained something from each sentence. Aim for only top-quality SEO blog material. 

Demonstrate Expertise

Aim to become an authority on the subject, or add quirky facts to make you stand out from the crowd.

What are Elements pushing Lead Generations?

Add Pop-Ups Strategically

Pop-ups focus on one message that is important and needs to capture the attention of readers. Yet, be careful do not to overuse it.

There are different types of pop-ups:

• On page load- It pop-ups information when entering the page
• On Bounce- It appears when people try to leave. Here you get the chance to somehow reassure them to stay.
• On Scroll- It comes up when scrolling the content. You may send the pop-up with CTA: Subscribe now and explore more.
• On click- It helps deliver a pop-up on form submissions. For example, if someone adds a product to the wishlist, you can gift them a 10% sale.

Offer Subscriptions

Subscriptions give the company the chance to grow. You can enjoy the benefits from:

• The potential loyalty
• Customer Insights
• Improved products

Host Surveys and Giveaways

Surveys and Giveaways are some of the most effective methods to acquire data about your customer. Your readers will answer some fun questions, and you will give them a chance to win a prize.

Make Easy for People to Share your Content

Add buttons to instantly share your content on social media.

Promote the Blog

You might think that you do not need the promotion because you are already optimizing your blog. But the competition is immense, and nobody would have needed promotion if not that. It would help if you tried to stand out from the competitors.
Use all the appropriate channels to promote your blog

• Email
• Social Media
• Website

Don't Forget to Include a Well-Placed Call to Action (CTA)

Marketing without CTA is unimaginable. Marketers attract visitors to take action that benefits them.  CTA can drive users to jump on another link, download material, or buy a product.

What to consider when developing CTA?

• Placement
• Design
• Text

Where to put CTA?

• On the top of the page
• Middle of the Page (Split)
• At the end of Article 

Call to Action examples that work

The language of your CTA is another crucial tool - it should be commanding:

• Get Started - something will happen straight away
• See How ... - be specific and action-orientated
• Try ... for free (for ... days) - something for free! Who can resist?
• Create an ... (event, website) - once they've seen how it works, they're hooked
• Read the case study (report, ebook) - clear and straightforward
• Buy it now - they've seen your product, they're ready to buy
• Sign up and ... - another clear and concise call to action
• Download Now - an unambiguous instruction
• Subscribe - again, a quick route to conversion

What are the Types of CTA?

• Hello Bar

Hello bar, placed at the top of the page, is an effective tool to grab your visitors' attention. Thin, recognizable, and static, it stays there if readers decide to scroll down.

• Static Sidebar

The static sidebar is locked into place, so when users scroll up or down, it does not disappear. The information on the sidebar is accessible at any time.

• Scrolling Sidebar

A scrolling CTA looks similar to the above-mentioned static sidebar. The difference is in mobility. The scrolling sidebar follows readers everywhere and tends to get noticed more.

• Exit Intent Overlay

Before visitor leaves the website, exit intent pops up with a prompt offer. It strives to pull back guests, who tend to leave without completing an action.

• Slide-in or Popup

Slide-In or Popup appears when readers scroll down and continue reading the article.

Three Tips to Improve your CTA

• You can have a prize-winning landing page with stunning graphics and Booker Prize-winning text, but without a CTA, it's useless. An experienced copywriter will create a clear Call to Action that grabs attention.
• Choices make people nervous. Make your reader happy with one instruction.
• Your CTA button is a visual marketing tool. Visitors need to know where to click, or they won't bother. Never use grey - grey buttons are inactive. Avoid red - it signifies danger. There's a good reason why most CTA buttons are green or blue. They're invitingly calm colors.

Do you want to take your content to another level?

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